Egyptian leader calls deadly car blast ‘terrorist incident’
CAIRO: A huge blast which killed 20 people in central Cairo was caused by a speeding car packed with explosives, Egyptian officials said on Monday as the president decried the “terrorist incident”.
The car was driving against the traffic when it smashed into three other vehicles just before midnight Sunday evening, seting off a massive explosion just outside the country’s National Cancer Institute.
Four of the 20 people killed remain unidentified, the health ministry said, while 47 others were wounded.
Between “three and four (of the injured) are in critical condition in the intensive care unit,” Khaled Megahed, a spokesman for the health ministry, told a press conference.
He said they suffered from burns of varying degrees.
Body parts were also retrieved from the scene, he added.
President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi described the blast as a “terrorist incident”.
Inasocialmediapost,heofferedhiscondolences to the victims’ families and the Egyptian people.
The interior ministry said a technical inspection indicated “an amount of explosives was inside the car, which caused it to explode when it collided.”
Both the ministry and police said they suspected the Hasm group, an armed affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, of being behind the atack.
Social media users posted footage of cars ablaze at the scene and of patients being evacuated from the Cancer Institute, which was severely damaged and charred in the explosion.
Megahed said 78 cancer patients from the institute were moved to other hospitals to continue their treatment.
Television stations on Monday morning broadcast footage of shatered windows and doors. The health ministry did not say if hospital patients or staff were among the casualties.
There was no immediate explanation as to why the crash had caused such a large explosion and officials could not be reached for questions about possible sabotage or whether there had been any explosive materials at the scene. The county’s top prosecutor ordered an investigation into the crash, according to the state-run Mena news agency.
“We heard an explosion and... the bank entrance glass was shatered everywhere,” said Abdel-rahman Mohamed, a security officer at a bank at the opposite side of the hospital.